The U.S. presidential election is happening in less than a month, and before November 3 there are four debates. Three of the four are presidential, between Democratic candidate Joe Biden and incumbent president and Republican candidate Donald Trump. The remaining debate is between Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, and Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence. At the time of this article, two out of the four debates have occurred — one presidential and one vice presidential debate.
The first presidential debate occurred on the 29th of September, and the vice presidential debate occurred on October 7, 2020. After watching the first debate, I thought that it would be fun to watch the vice presidential debate live with my friends so we could talk through what was happening. My friends and I talked a lot about what was said in the first debate, so this time we thought having a watch-party in real-time would be more entertaining.
The questions
Before watching, I decided that I wanted to ask all of my friends (and myself) three main questions:
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How “experienced” are you when it comes to viewing presidential debates, or general political debates?
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What are your thoughts before the debate? Do you have any expectations, comments, or concerns?
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And what are your thoughts after the debate? Did the event go as you expected it to? Compared to last time, how was the debate-watching experience?
Author’s Note: The following responses are intentionally generalized and summarized, without identifying anyone. The purpose of this article is to document a historical event that my friends and I experienced together.
The Answers
Question one
One of the things that I wanted to know before starting this was how “knowledgeable” my friends and I were regarding political debates in general. I decided to ask my friends what their personal experience “levels” were. I soon understood that we were all pretty new to this, but this made us super excited to watch and experience it together. All of us had already watched the first debate, so we knew what had happened as well as what the debate’s major talking points were. Other than that, only a few of us had watched political debates in the past.
Question two
We all expected this debate to go a lot smoother than the previous one, and we hoped to gain deeper insight into the different campaigns. One of the critical issues that we were expecting was questions about COVID and, more specifically, Trump contracting the virus. This debate was hyped up by many people and media sources, who expected that because Harris and Pence are both considered to be “good” debaters it would be engaging. My friend and I were also thinking about the additional precautions that were going to be taken as a consequence of how many people contracted coronavirus shortly after the last debate. Along with this, we talked about how the moderator needed to be strong and take control of the debate, unlike what we saw last time. I guess our overall expectation for this debate was that it would be more actual debating and less trivial arguing.
Question three
All in all, I think that the debate went how we expected it to go, although there were a few things that we did not anticipate. For instance, there were several instances of avoiding answering the questions posed and instead re-focusing on a different topic. We also saw that both of the candidates, while advocating for their respective agendas, introduced more substantial information in comparison to what the presidential candidates said on September 29. We all agreed that watching the debate with people and talking about it while it’s happening is a lot more fun than watching by yourself and talking about it afterwards.
The conclusion
I think that doing a debate watch-party with your friends helps you understand each other on a deeper level. This is mainly because people tend to keep their political beliefs on the back burner so as not to cause any conflicts or problems. But, doing things like this helps you stay informed and engaged in conversations with your peers. Along with this, it’s a different experience watching a debate with friends, because your interpretation of what’s being said is influenced by the thoughts of more than just yourself.
This is a great way to watch the debates, understand what’s going on in American politics today, and hang out with the people that you love!
One last thing: This is our future, so… Remember to Vote!!!